GNOME Foundation: Stormy’s Update: Week of July 13th

http://blogs.gnome.org –
First thing Monday morning I went to the doctor who determined that I had a sinus infection. (For fellow travelers, if your cheekbones ache and your teeth feel like they are going to fall out every time the plane takes off and lands, you may have a sinus infection. Not only did I have the scheduled 3 takeoffs and landings on my trip home from the Desktop Summit but when our plane got hit by lightening, they threw in a bonus landing and takeoff in Wyoming!)
Followed up on some Desktop Summit stuff:
Sent co-locating survey results to both KDE and GNOME boards. Attended GNOME Board decision meeting about co-locating in the future. (You’ll have to wait for them to say what the decision was …)
Pinged sponsor companies about banners that were left behind.
Helped draft co-located press release.
Pinged attorney about 401K plan. (Our attorney did meet with the plan’s attorney.)
Trying to help figure out a board meeting time - with seven board members around the world with jobs and school, it’s hard to find a time that works. Our current time doesn’t work very well for folks in India, like Srini. (He did stay up until 3am last time though to dial in!)
Read the GNOME Annual Report 2008. Nice job, Lucas, writers and photographers! It was a good year for GNOME.
Created a Zazzle account for the new GNOME Store. (Got permission to have a 5 letter login and store name, gnome.)
Set up a press interview about my talk at OpenSource World.
Wrote my Friends of GNOME post cards. They went to Finland, Australia, Cyprus, and Canada as well as several US states! Sign up to support GNOME with a Friends of GNOME monthly subscription and get a postcard from your favorite hacker!
Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so that Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME.
Talked to a couple of sponsors (Canonical, IBM) about things they’d like to see done and things they are willing to sponsor.
Met with Sally from HALO Worldwide. She helps the Apache Foundation with their press and marketing and teaches a class every year at ApacheCon. We talked about how she could help with GNOME marketing and pres. I’d love to have a marketing hackfest and have her come teach a press class.
Met with Paul Cutler about all the things we’d like to get going on GNOME marketing, following up on all the conversations from the Desktop Summit.
Went through all my email and notes from the Desktop Summit and created an enormous todo list.
For next week:
Create slides for my OSCON talk, the Role of Users in Open Source Projects. It will be based on The GNOME Foundation is all about people. Speaking of OSCON, I really like the system they have set up for identifying which talks you want to see, what other talks people interested in those talks are interested in and identifying who will be at the conference and who you’d like to meet. It would be great to have something like that for GUADEC.
Attending two days of OSCON. (Short trip this year to save on hotel stays and to minimize time away from home as I’ve already spent 10 days away from home this month.)
Tackling as many items from the rest of my todo list as possible.
The rest of my to do list. (Let me know if you’d like to help on any of the projects!) These are not in any particular order here.
thank all the Desktop Summit sponsors (Hoping someone from the marketing team will help compile a list of all the press and blogs that came out of the Desktop Summit.)
finalize 401K plan with attorneys
blog about travel committee - they did an excellent job with the Desktop Summit
ask all teams for input on Q2 report
follow up with potential sponsor who was at GUADEC
follow up with people who had good ideas at GUADEC that they mentioned to me
Talk to Jim Zemlin about Moblin & Linux Foundation and relationship to GNOME Foudnation
GNOME 3.0 launch plans? Include advisory board companies
publish June Friends of GNOME data
Publish case studies/success stories from the foundation (This was an idea that came up on the marketing list and Novell has already sent us a great GNOME customer story that we can use.)
ask other sponsors to help Sun, Red Hat, Canonical for customer stories
find people to help with the customer testimonials (case study article, quotes, slides, sidebar)
find someone to help Dave Richards with the usability hackfest he’d like to hold in the City of Largo
find sponsors for GNOME foundation booth in 2010 CSUN
apologize to invited journalists who didn’t make the Desktop Summit because there travel wasn’t booked
talk to OIN - they list GNOME as a partner
Follow up with someone who had ideas for a GNOME project and wanted to know how to go about it
summarize advisory board feedback for foundation list
summarize advisory board feedback for advisory board (close to ready)
fill out Google Adwords Grant Application
talk to Mozilla about their Accessibility Strategy
figure out how to work with Spanish government (Janjo Marin sent me some ideas.)
Fill out paperwork for 401K insurance
add checks to Friends of GNOME spreadsheet
continue to ping about GUADEC 2008 finances
continue to ping about automating Friends of GNOME data input process (paypal to gnucash to webpage)
Work on budget with new treasurer
Figure out how to get product news from News Foundation blog to press and advisory board (will probably give to press team when it is created)
find someone to help create a GNOME slideset template
get back to Funambol on where to advertise GNOME related projects that they are willing to pay for
Find out how to review new gnome webpage content so I can help
Amazon mp3 download uses GTK - contact them about sponsorship
write up blurbs about why companies sponsor GNOME (or find people to help) - for our website
find someone who can help create a list of recommended desktop apps that OpenLogic would put in their library for enterprise customers
GNOME Foundation sponsorship plan like premium sponsorship - put in wiki
follow up with sys admin team about installing a CRM system for the GNOME Foundation (It would really help the board, Rosanna, myself and others working on contacts, sponsors and finances.)
follow up with the sys admin team on setting up better analytics for gnome.org so marketing can make better plans.
follow up with International Cooperation group from the university where the Desktop Summit was housed (They’d like to work with us to promote free software in developing countries.)
get feedback from advisory board members on advisory board meeting at GUADEC
send finance update out to advisory board (I’ll be doing this once a month.)
Figure out who could attend a conference in Saudi Arabia to discuss potential finacial support for adabizing programs
write up notes from marketing BOF at the Desktop Summit
get [email protected] email address so identica/twitter team can post from email
create wiki page for GNOME press team
get agreement signed by GNOME folks for the work Canonical is funding on bugzilla for GNOME
Make sure we get donate button on gnome.org front page
Find speakers for the Desktop panel I am now chairing at OpenSource World. (In addition to my talk.)
(Software)

The GNOME Accessibility team will be using some of their earmarked funds to have a booth at 2010 CSUN - set up by Eitan Isaacson. I think this is great as it’s a way to reach users who may not already be using a free desktop.